


how much you want to risk

by earnmysong



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:19:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11350680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnmysong/pseuds/earnmysong
Summary: “Give her a minute,” Steve instructs. If he’s speaking, he hasn’t disappeared. “It’s a lot to process.”// Diana is horrified yet happy, Steve is confused, and Barry is in deep trouble.





	how much you want to risk

**Author's Note:**

> One could say this was _Justice League_ speculation; really, it's just my heart dealing with an excessive amount of feelings. 
> 
> Title taken from The Chainsmokers & Coldplay's _Something Just Like This_. Wonder Woman is property of DC Comics, not yours truly. A huge thank you to J (@phrenitis/@inkpenpencil) for the early look-over and boundless encouragement!

\----

“Bartholomew?” Diana attempts to conceal the true depth of her anger as best she can but, taking in the sight before her, she sees how profoundly left of center she’s fallen in this endeavor. Her normally over-confident coworker (truly, he’s closer to a charge than anything else, and their current situation does nothing but reinforce this perception) responds by bracing his feet more firmly against the floor and sending a wordless plea to the ceiling in advance of the Themyscirian discipline her tone appears to have heralded for him. 

While she does feel an unmistakable need to lash out, to shake him senseless, she knows she cannot. Antiope had never once crumbled beneath the strain of assisting her in shaping who she would become, though she herself had sometimes feared she would perish rather than triumph. Her duty is to instruct Barry, to guide him, to demonstrate how a hero moves through life: creating waves solely in the service of others and never for personal purposes. To do anything less than this would be to dishonor Antiope’s legacy, part of Diana’s own core of strength and sacrifice. Despite the century that separates them, her heart has yet to register the distance, and she would never dream of such a thing. 

So she breathes, silently reciting one discovery from the wreckage of Pompeii on each exhale, until she is reasonably certain she will actually speak, in English, not simply rant in every language she knows. “What did you do?”

Barry’s glance implores the man standing beside him, a man she’ll recognize until consciousness eludes her forever, and likely after as well, and he adds a sweep of his outstretched palm for good measure: _please step forward and begin speaking whenever might be convenient_. Barry’s testing a theory now, it would seem, hoping that some amount of the emotional connection he’s heard she once shared with Steve Trevor still exists, that the fact that the little outing they’ve just mounted has blown a hole in the time/space continuum, or knocked the universe sideways, will somehow sound less catastrophic coming from him. 

Barry brushes smoldering ash from the fleece collar of Steve’s bomber jacket as they trade positions. With the movement, her brain takes the liberty to intersperse its list of concrete, fate-of-all-mankind inquiries with a voice that has been relegated to the realm of memory for a lifetime. _His_ voice, whispering her name, testing the limits of newly-acquired foreign phrases, teasing her about her intense philosophical aversion to a runny egg yolk ( _it’s as if the sun is dying, Steve; no one should eat that_ ). Only one of these has already occurred; the others constitute a visceral reaction to sharing the same space with him again, even for just the three minutes that have elapsed since she noticed the pair of people in her vicinity.

The genius of Barry’s thought process, in this matter, if little else, cannot be ignored.

(In addition to continuing instruction on the merits of altruism, she must have a serious conversation with him about channeling one’s mental acuity into constructive pursuits other than extricating oneself from calamities that need not have existed in the first place.)

Steve comes to a stop, leaves several inches between them. ( _No man’s land_ , her mind provides immediately.)

While she feels herself brighten at the unexpected callback, the updated, lighter connotation of words that had so succinctly captured the darkness of war, she can also see the change take effect; Steve relaxes, grinning broadly, only after her expression shifts. 

She does not allow herself to slide completely into euphoria, however, though the feeling beckons her with the intensity that lies within the Lasso of Hestia, and fighting it proves equally difficult. She knows exactly what intellect requires she do before she can even begin to accept reality as it supposedly stands now, despite her entire being screaming in protest at the mere suggestion. 

She clenches her fist against her chest, calling her heart out of the residence it has adopted in her throat. Using the sound like an anchor, she finally closes her eyes.

“Shit. Is she fainting? Does Wonder Woman faint? I’m basically a superhero intern, and I had to process prints from a kidnapping when they had the medical histories review. I’ve been told to keep my day job at all costs. Maybe you should stand behind her? I’m physically qualified, sure, but, you know, not you.”

She pictures Barry skidding anxiously around the room, the disturbed air he trails upsetting more papers than his motion-blurred fingers are sorting through, trying to locate notes pertaining to the training he’d missed.

“Give her a minute,” Steve instructs. If he’s speaking, he hasn’t disappeared. “It’s a lot to process.” At this point, she’s secure enough in his existence to trust her sight again, and does so eagerly.

“You okay?” His tone, for all his advice of time and conviction that she’s fine, is impossibly gentle, a verbal cushion meant to diffuse pressure in the event that this emotional blow, out of all the others in her life, should it land with full force, truly breaks her. 

(He’s aware of her ability to handle the obstacles the universe throws at her, she has no doubt of that. His eyes search hers, with concern, yes, but not pity. Instead, they question, attempting to divine details of the battles she’s had to wage and win in his absence.)

She surges forward, the revelation that he values her well-being so much more than his own clarity such a welcome shock to her system that her tenuous control over her limbs evaporates; she erases what remains of the gap he’d created and traces his face with reverent fingertips. After a breath, he catches her hand, crowds, delightfully, further toward her, and kisses her.

Defying nearly every tenet of rationality she has collected over the course of her tenure in the world of man, and many of the teachings of her upbringing, the kiss is not physical need brought to fruition. Though this definition applies on the most rudimentary of levels, it fails to encompass so much, in the same way one of her artifacts can summon a place and an era, but cannot fashion the exact experience of living beside it.

Where their lips meet, a hundred years of conversation pass, foundations cement anew, and her world transforms. 

Unsurprisingly, in light of the laws that govern human biology, he pulls back before she does. Her mouth follows his, on instinct, until it becomes necessary for her to right herself or topple them both to the ground.

The look he gives her, soft and familiar and observant, asks, again, his question from a moment ago, forgotten in favor of insistent physicality. “I am hewn from different material than I once believed. Beliefs are not easily altered, however, and clay fortifies in fire rather than fragmenting,” she offers with a shrug.

Barry enters her office then, sipping a latte and proffering her usual candy-hued order. “I figured I’d leave you guys to it, whatever _it_ ended up being. You didn’t need me around.”

“It is not appropriate to go to Starbucks when you have potentially prompted irrevocable damage,” she gasps, unable to fully comprehend this turn of events, “and a drink will not make me forget my ire.”

Barry tracks her admonishment attentively, waiting until it concludes to supply, “The coffee came with the bookstore. I went to Barnes & Noble, turned the history section upside down looking for inconsistencies. Nothing out of place.”

“There won’t be, yet,” she sighs. “We are not far enough removed from the deviation.”

“Hey.” Steve, at her side, reaches to clasp her hand in his. “Maybe there won’t ever be.” She turns, her gaze telling him: _I do not believe that for one second, and nor do you_. “The plane blew up, right?” His query is not meant for her; Barry nods vigorously in confirmation. “We’ll figure out whatever else we need to when it gets to us.”

She smiles tiredly, rests her head on his shoulder. Taking the plastic cup that she still has in her grip, he asks, “Care to explain this?” He holds the drink aloft, inspecting the liquid curiously with an air of displeasure. 

“It’s tea.”

“Tea’s pink now.” 

“Not always, but it can be. There are many ways the world has changed, Steve. Beverage colors are hardly anyone’s greatest concern,” she laughs. 

“Lesson number one.”


End file.
